Campo Santo cuts off association with "propagator of despicable garbage."

Further Reading

Campo Santo, the developer behind forest exploration game Firewatch, is using DMCA requests to take down videos of its game streamed by popular YouTube personality Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. The move comes after PewDiePie called another player a "n-----r" (NSFW video) during a live stream of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds yesterday.

"We're filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games," Campo Santo cofounder Sean Vanaman said in a Twitter thread yesterday evening. "There is a bit of leeway you have to have with the internet when u [sic] wake up every day and make video games. There's also a breaking point. I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make."

Vanaman went on to call PewDiePie a "propogator [sic] of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry," and he encouraged other developers to similarly cut off their relationship with him (no other major developers have publicly answered that call as of press time). A Let's Play video of PewDiePie playing FireWatchhas been taken down from the service as of Monday morning, though it's not clear if a DMCA request was the direct cause.

Campo Santo's decision comes despite a statement on the company's FAQ page that explicitly allows the kind of streaming PewDiePie engages in. "We love that people stream and share their experiences in the game," the site reads. "You are free to monetize your videos as well." On Twitter, Vanaman said Campo Santo still "love[s] streamers" more generally, as evidenced by 3,000 game keys given to streamers, he said. At the same time, Vanaman writes that Campo Santo doesn't want to be seen as "endorsing" PewDiePie specifically by having its game streamed on his channel.

Further Reading

That said, Campo Santo may be within its rights to rescind that streaming permission in part or in full at any time it wants. As we've discussed previously on Ars, the law treats video games as audiovisual works whose corporate owners can limit their "public performance" to large groups of people (say, via internet streaming). This is why companies like Nintendo can set strict guidelines over how videos of their games are monetized via advertising on services like YouTube.

While a streamer could try to claim their running commentary over the game provides a "fair use" exception to the DMCA, that could be a difficult argument in court. As YouTube warns on its own Help page, "Without the appropriate license from the publisher, use of video game or software user interface must be minimal." Or, as Vanaman argued on Twitter, "his stream is not commentary, it is ad growth for his brand."

Further Reading

PewDiePie is among the most popular video game streamers in the world, with 57 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Earlier this year, he came under intense criticism after a video in which he paid two Indian men hold up a sign that said "Death to all Jews" via Fiverr. That controversy cost PewDiePie his nascent business relationships with YouTube, Disney, and Google's "Preferred" ad program.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl